Adam preened. Pride practically poured from his ears.
“Where’s Nate?” she asked. She kept six feet between them. Out of arm’s reach, but also far enough to dampen any soul magic fire or freeze.
“You don’t get to ask stuff like that,” Adam practically sang.
Good thing Callie had lost all sense of pride in the ER the night she’d been fired. “Whatever. I’ve got his shit. Where’s mine?”
“Can’t say. Boss said to be here and collect the souls.” The envy in the words made her think he’d rather work for the Soul Charmer, but also that he had no idea he was gathering his boss’s soul.
Derek’s elbows edged out from his body. It was a subtle swell, both making himself larger to protect her and opening himself up in case of a fight. What had he seen that made him think body shots were on the agenda?
Callie tilted her head toward Derek. “Here’s the souls.”
Derek pulled the jar from his pocket and handed it over to Adam. The dealer’s eyes were on the jar and not on the way Callie edged away from the action.
“They all in here?” Again, that awe.
“Yep. They don’t take up that much space.” She wasn’t about to explain that she didn’t know what state the souls would be in after their shared confinement.
Adam pocketed the jar. “You going to return my shit, too?”
“No,” Derek said with finality. “Where’s Zara?”
“Nate said to give you this receipt, and that he’d be in touch once he verified the souls—whatever the fuck that means—to return the woman.” The woman.
Adam handed Callie a long envelope. It was folded in half. While the paper wasn’t flat, it wasn’t wide enough to have another appendage in it. Thank fuck.
She peeked inside the paper, and almost dropped the envelope. If her emotions hadn’t already been pushed to their limits she might have screamed or cried or thrown something. A strip of blood-soaked cloth was the receipt. Beneath the dark red the paisley print of her mother’s favorite peasant top peeked through.
Callie stared at the cloth, the message. Nate wanted to remind her not to screw him over. She hadn’t planned on it, but now she wondered if Derek had taken out the wrong man.
She affixed her hardened gaze on Adam. “Thanks. I’ll be waiting for Nate’s call.”
Callie turned her back to the dealer, to the cathedral, to fucking Gem City, and walked away.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The world had a way of halting when you were waiting on an important call. Seconds ached and minutes burned. Hours were stretched over aged cactuses and pierced with spines. Callie and Derek had driven back to her apartment without speaking a word, and now time stuttered.
Inside the one-bedroom apartment with the deadbolt latched, Callie drew the first full, deep breath into her lungs in hours. Tension still trapped her tummy, but the rest of her body was loose enough to collapse onto the couch. Derek sat beside her. His upper lip almost twitched every few moments. The rest of his body was stock-still.
A thriller paperback—four days overdue at Gem City Library—rested on one corner of her low coffee table. The back cover promised vengeance, and Callie hoped she’d be able to relate soon.
Derek placed Adam’s cell phone on the center of the table. The screen was dark.
“How long do you think it’ll be?” The barren room amplified Callie’s rasp. The heater sputtered as it kicked on, but even that rattle couldn’t cover the desperation behind her voice. Derek wouldn’t know any better than she would, but the need to control the situation was biting at her brain.
“It’ll be fast, doll. Nate wants his soul back.” Derek’s certainty couldn’t puncture Callie’s fear.
“How’s he even going to get it back in his body? How is he going to know if I gave him the real thing?”
Derek hesitated for a moment. His fingers fluttering against her leg. Finally, he said, “He was reading that Saint Petro book before. He’s trying to figure out the soul shit on his own. Maybe he will try doing it himself?”
DIY soul magic had ‘bad idea’ all over it. The remembered cries of the souls smushed into the jar alongside Nate’s rallied in Callie’s ears. “The soul might do the work for him.”
Or the others in that jar might shove that asshole’s soul out.
It probably didn’t work that way. It hadn’t at the soul well, but something about the slimy sensation she’d suffered being near Nate’s soul made her think it was possible. Maybe some people were so rotten even their souls couldn’t be commanded.
“You know, doll, you can be fucking scary when you want to be these days.” He’d meant it as a compliment, and the praise mingled with notes of admiration and a more sensual approval.
“We’ve got time to kill….” She cast a knowing glance toward the bedroom, but delivered the words with enough humor to make it clear she didn’t mean it.
“We ain’t missing that call.” He stretched in a slow, languid movement. He dropped his arm behind her shoulders. “Seriously, I think Adam about shit a brick when you turned your back on him.”
“Nate has something to hold over us, but not that guy.” There had been a time when she would have buckled under the steady gaze of anyone who stuffed a box-cutter in their boot. Shit had changed. She had changed. Confidence was a necessity now. It was an invisible exoskeleton built to brace her from Gem City and its worst. Each strut and brace born of necessity. Shaped steel was dangerous when it was molten, but resilient when it cooled. Callie wasn’t as hard as metal, but she was determined as fuck.
“No one gets to hold shit over your head, Callie, not for long. Nate will get his when this is over.” It wasn’t hyperbole, it was a vow.
Callie needed to stay focused. “We need to get through this first.”
“I wish I’d taken out Nate
